Taken
by Afsaneh
Summary: Post Reichenbach. John is grieving for Sherlock and all he wants is to pour his heart out in his blog. But other people are determined to stop him... Told from John's POV. Work in progress: Sherlock's got to come back from the dead, Colonel Moran needs to be defeated. But most of all, there's got to be some JohnLock along the way.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I stumbled as I turned away, tripping and falling onto the uneven earth around Sherlock's grave. The world around me disappeared as my tears began to fall, slowly at first but then in gasping, racking sobs which left me lying prostrate on the ground, my arms and legs flailing in sheer hopelessness. I couldn't hear the shivering of the tree leaves in the breeze above my head or feel the pale rays of the sun as it tried to break through the grey cloud above. All I knew was the pain inside my chest; the paralysing, suffocating pain which gripped me harder and more relentlessly than any human hand had ever done.

I'm John Watson, Doctor John Watson. I'm a medical man, trained to be calm and competent in the face of human suffering. I've held the hands of the dying in hospital wards in England and in the mountains of Afghanistan. I know the smells and sight and sounds of death across three continents. In Helmand I fought and often failed to hold together the shattered bodies of soldiers whose vehicles had driven over a hidden IED, breaking the inevitable news to comrades with a sympathetic squeeze of the shoulder before turning my face away. I'd lifted the bodies of mortally wounded children from the cold steel of the operating table at Camp Bastion and placed their small, slight bodies into the arms of grieving fathers. And in London I'd kept my eyes on my friend – my very best friend – as he took his last step off the roof of the building where my medical career began.

I was not afraid of death; in Afghanistan or London I faced it with the calm certainty that it could not be beaten, only cheated for a short while. But here in the desolation of a London graveyard, I knew that death had won. This death, Sherlock's death, had burnt away the heart of me. I could still move my legs and arms, blood still pumped around my body and my lungs still filled rhythmically with air, but inside the spark that had made me feel so alive and vital for the last two years had died.

The exhaustion of the last few days finally overcame my tears and I lay curled up like a foetus. In the frenzy of my weeping I had shifted back towards the headstone and now I lay, quiet and clenched on top of Sherlock's grave. As my ear pressed to the newly turned earth I thought I heard another person stirring, but there was no comfort there, no reassuring heartbeat thudding through the six feet of earth, no warmth of another body under mine.

He was gone. This man, this astounding, irritating, brilliant, arrogant, man, who broke so many limits of what was humanly possible, had been just like everyone else after all. He was dead. There were times when I didn't think he was human, but the pedestal on which I'd placed him had shattered. There were no miracles, no comebacks, no magic tricks or smart manoeuvres. Sherlock was dead. The grief began to rise up again, choking me as I tried to breathe and swirling round like a maelstrom, making me dizzy in my despair. The completeness of my loss overwhelmed me and with no glimpse of light or hope to reach for or hold onto, I passed out cold.

A flash of light burst through my eyelids. And then another, and another. Coming to, I slowly stretched my legs, stubbing my feet on the heaped earth. Blinking I opened my eyes, becoming conscious of the falling temperature around me and the shadows cast across the grave by the dying sun. A man was standing in front of me, tall and slim, repeatedly pressing the shutter on his camera which was flashing in my face.

"What…? Wh…? Who...? ". I couldn't speak.

"Dr Watson? Daniel Duckworth, journalist. How are you coping following the death of Sherlock Holmes?"  
"You … journalist? How the hell… what are you doing here?" I sat up, now fully alert, and scrambled onto my knees, shaking my head free of earth.

"I got a tip off. You were asleep on Sherlock's grave, Dr Watson. Missing him are you?"

I stood up and turned away, so he couldn't see my face. "Stop flashing that thing in my face. Get lost."

"We'd like to do an interview with you Dr. Watson. Our readers really care. After all, he duped everyone, didn't he? All of us journalists and all our readers, we were taken in just as you were. How about it – an exclusive on your life together? All the personal touches, that's what our readers like. What he was like to live with, how he used to relax, his love life… that kind of thing."

I took a deep breath and turned to face him. "Why don't you just fuck off."

"We're going to run this anyway…. I've got the pictures now. You may as well co-operate; it'll run better for you if you do. Otherwise, I'll just have to draw my own conclusions. You know, lonely batchelor John Watson sleeping on Sherlock Holmes' grave. That kind of thing."

"I don't have to talk to you." I turned and ran, staggering and stumbling to the exit to find a cab.

Daniel Duckworth's piece wasn't the only one. Journalists hounded me day and night, hammering on the door at 221b Baker Street, ringing and texting, leaving messages on the blog. Their tactics were resourceful and varied as they offered ever increasing sums of money, or threatened to expose what they called the true story of our relationship. There were even suggestions that only an interview with me could help clear Sherlock's name. Others took the sympathetic tack, offering a listening ear and a chance to talk, telling me how much they missed him too.

I ignored them all. My mobile rang and bleeped until the battery died. I didn't bother to recharge it. I heard Sarah's voice and Lestrade's among the many calling through the letterbox, but lay still until their calls died away and I heard the letterbox flap spring back down into place. Each morning Mrs Hudson brought up handfuls of card-shaped envelopes, most with the address handwritten, no doubt by well intentioned sympathisers. They formed a growing pile on the floor by the sofa where she placed them until the thought of Sherlock flicking through them, deducing the personal life of each sender by the lick of the postage stamp and the shape of the handwriting caused me such pain that I kicked the pile flying across the room. Mrs Hudson didn't bring any more up after that.

I missed him. I ached for him. I craved him. It felt as if my very nerves were straining out to have a sense of him: the sound of his voice, the sight of his shadow, the touch of his hand on my shoulder. I succumbed to the grief, letting it conquer and overwhelm me, unaware of the passing of the hours or the time of day. Only sleep bought respite: dreamless, heavy, jagged sleep, punctured each time I woke by the realisation that something was missing, followed by a leaden despair as I remembered it was Sherlock.


	2. Chapter 2

I don't recall how many of those long, dark days there were. The air in the chilly London flat grew heavy and stale and the already meagre contents of the fridge turned lank and green with mould. A mound of unwashed clothes grew on my bedroom floor and when I ran out of clean alternatives I wrapped myself in Sherlock's dressing grown, rubbing the softly smelling fabric against my nose for solace.

The grief had become familiar; I knew its shape and form and relied on it to help keep Sherlock close. Its heavy suffocation allowed me to yearn for him; stopping all other desires and distractions. I ignored Mrs Hudson's daily visits to the flat, turning my head against her concern and only picking at the trays of food she left me. To my distorted mind she became increasingly intrusive, opening blinds and windows, bringing up bags of groceries and, one day, ushering Sarah into the sitting room ahead of her.

"John."

I turned on the sofa at the unexpected voice and sat up sluggishly.

"Hello Sarah."

"How are you doing John?"

I couldn't speak. My eyes started welling up with tears. She leaned over, and clasped my knee with her hand. "You will get through this, John. You will heal. You have to give it time. And you have to look after yourself. He wants you to do that, John. He wants you to recover."

"How do you know that? How do you know what he wants?" My voice was slow and heavy with exhaustion.

"Of course he wants you to recover, John. Sherlock was the most alive person I ever met. You know that too. You wrote about it. Your blog described a man who lived ten times the life of most of us. He would want you to be living now, not drowning like this."

I looked at her with contempt. "Yeah, right. The most alive person you ever met. Who killed himself. Who jumped off a building. And that's the man who values life, is it?"

"John, I can't explain what happened. No-one can. And you may never know the answer. But so many people love you… they want you to get through this. Me, Mrs Hudson, your sister…" Sarah hesitated and then continued. "Lestrade, even Molly – everyone is rooting for you. And Sherlock too… I know it, John. He loved you. He would have hated to see you like this."

"Love? He didn't know the meaning of the word." I turned my head away and refused to speak again.

The next visitor was Lestrade, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot at the sight of me. "John, good to see you. You're .. ummm… you're looking…. Yes, well."

I sighed and he tried again. "How are you doing? Getting along ok, are you? Very difficult time and all that…"

"I'm fine." The lie hung between us for a long second .

"Yes, well, ok… then. If there's anything you need…." Lestrade looked longingly towards the door.

"Thank you, Greg," I managed. He nodded and went towards the door. At the foot of the stairs he turned and took a deep breath: "He would hate to see you like this, you know. You deserve better, both of you." He was gone before my jaded brain could fashion a reply.

I begged Mrs Hudson not to let anyone else in, knowing that it was only a matter of time before Mycroft turned up, smug and supercilious. Over three decades of sibling rivalry had finally come to a conclusion. She tried to bargain with me: "I won't let anyone else in today if you'll have a shower and eat a proper meal." I shook my head at her, but let her take the piles of stale clothes downstairs to wash. Later, when she brought them back, dried and folded, she heated me a tin of soup and I ate a few spoonfuls. This is how Sherlock must have felt when I tried to get him to eat, I thought.

The next day I dressed in clean clothes and made myself a cup of tea. I picked up Sherlock's dressing gown, lifting it to my nose to smell his scent when I heard a slight cough at the doorway. Looking round I saw Molly standing there, diffident and uncertain.

"Hi." Her fingers were twisting together anxiously.

"Molly. Ummm… come in?" I gestured towards the sofa, hoping she would refuse. She didn't.

"Umm…. I don't really know… that is… I'm sorry" she said simply, looking down at her hands.

"Thank you. I'm sorry for you too. I know how much he meant to you." The words came out of my mouth automatically but the flush on her cheeks told me that they meant something to her.

"Yes… I wish… that is… " she stopped and looked at me. "You know, Sherlock is just so amazing… I mean was so amazing – more people need to know about him."

I stared at her uncertainly. "What do you mean?"

"At the morgue…" the words came out in a rush. "He did so many experiments, he learned so much that was new. But not many people knew about it and lots of people that did just ignored him, because they thought he was arrogant or boasting or just weird..." her words trailed off as the red flush on her cheeks deepened. "But he wasn't weird, he was amazing and now he's not around any more, shouldn't we try and tell people what he's really like? That is, I mean…"

"Molly… I'm sure that anything that you can do to promote his work would be of great interest to the scientific community…"

"No, not me, John. He wouldn't want me to do it. You're his blogger. It's up to you to keep his name alive."

After Molly left I returned to my usual position on the sofa, but the grief didn't wrap itself around me in the usual way. Instead, I heard Molly's timid voice in my head: "It's up to you to keep his name alive." I pulled out my laptop and pressed the button to fire it into life.

Two days later, I was still writing. The words flowed as fast as my two fingers could type; stories of all the cases I could remember, Sherlock's deductions and, to please Molly, as much detail as I knew of the experiments he'd conducted. When the detail of particular cases escaped me, I padded them out with descriptions of other crimes that were in the papers at the time. Every few hours, I hit 'Publish', without bothering to reread or edit what I'd written.

As fast as I wrote, people were reading and commenting. The comments ranged from the sceptical to the idiotic to the adoring, but I didn't care. For me, the more comments I received, the more certain I could be that I was keeping Sherlock's name alive.

DeerStalker: Hi John, cool blog, thanks for all the inside info on SH. I read it was all a publicity stunt and that he and Moriarty are going to launch a new clothing range. Can you confirm?

JeanMarquis: Dear Dr Watson, I am so, so sorry that Sherlock's gone. Please accept the condolences of my entire Girl Guide troupe. He was a great man.

JimM: I'm disappointed. I thought Mr Holmes was supposed to be good at staying alive…

AngelEyes: Love the blog, keep up the good work. Have you got any new pics of Sherlock to post? He's hot!

Rex: Hey man, this blog is boring.

DanielD: John, take a tip from a friend, don't give your story away for free. You could tell it to many more people and make some money out of it. Give me a call at the newsdesk to discuss.

I ignored them all. But just as the comments fed my desire for Sherlock's name to be known, so my indifference seemed to encourage more contributions. Excerpts of what I'd written found their way to other websites, and Sherlock's name began to spread around the globe. But not everyone was happy:

DoctorS: John, get on with your life. You're not indebted to his memory. And come back to work soon. We miss you.

DeerStalker: Ok, so the clothing line was a bum steer. But I think it could really work. I've got some ideas if you want to talk.

MaggieGee: I don't know how on earth he managed to solve all those crimes. I mean, is any of this really true? If it is, someone ought to be sacked for not stopping him. This country's in a bad enough way as it is without people like him jumping off roofs.

Rex: Why are you still publishing? I told you, it's boring. If I were you, I'd just delete it.

I was pressing 'refresh' on my computer screen for the umpteenth time that day when I heard a car pull up outside the living room window. A few seconds later a car door slammed and high heels clipped up the stairs. Anthea appeared, mobile in hand and silently tilted her head towards the door.

"No thanks." I turned back to my computer. She paused and then coughed, politely but firmly. "I said, no, Anthea. I'm not going anywhere." She walked over to the sofa and leaned down close to me, so that her hair just brushed against my ear. "Get in the car, Dr Watson." It was an order, but I shook my head. Her effort was feeble in comparison to the bellowing of my commanding officer in Afghanistan. Undefeated, she leaned closer, so that I could feel her warm breath on my cheek. "We have something for you, Dr Watson. Something from Sherlock Holmes."

I grabbed Sherlock's scarf on my way down the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

"What is it then?" Anthea ignored me as the car slid away from the kerb and into the usual snarl of London traffic. I tried again: "What do you have for me? Is it something from Sherlock's will?" Her fingers were moving up and down on the keypad of her phone as if she was playing a musical instrument. I looked out of the window but the busy London streets were just a blur as the range of possibilities raced through my mind. I turned back to Anthea again. "Is it his diary? I didn't know that Sherlock kept a diary. "

I was talking to myself. I turned back to the window and saw a young woman, smartly dressed weave her way through the trail of commuters towards a postbox and push an envelope through the slot. My heart leapt. "A letter? Sherlock wrote me a letter didn't he? He said that people usually leave a note. He said that in the last phone call…." My voice tailed off. Anthea lifted her head from her phone and looked at me with slightly more pity than sympathy. I turned back to the window and spent the rest of the journey imagining what a letter from Sherlock might say.

The Diogenes Club isn't exactly hidden, but it's down one of those London side streets that leads nowhere, except to the Diogenes Club. And because the club is so reclusive, there's not much passing traffic. As the car stopped Anthea simply lifted her head and nodded towards the door. "Ok, ok, I know the form," I muttered as I stepped out onto the pavement and stood, briefly taking stock of where I was. The club's cream coloured building was in front of me; an anonymous façade, with the small brass nameplate as uninviting as the closed double doors. I pushed the bell, hard and waited.

The theatrical "Sssshhhh!" from the club footman as he opened the doors left me in little doubt that my previous performance had not yet been forgotten. It had probably taken all Mycroft's influence to allow me to be readmitted. The footman's forefinger finger seemed glued to his lips as he walked on exaggerated tip toes through the grandeur of the club's public rooms, gesturing me to follow.

We weaved our way through the leather armchairs, each one carefully positioned with its back to the others. I caught glimpses of immaculately pressed shirtcuffs, with shiny cufflinks and gleaming polished black shoes but their owners were well shielded by the wings of the chair or the pages of the Financial Times. A couple of Blackberrys and i-phones on sidetables were the only hint of modernity. One man was tapping away at the keypad of his phone. Curiosity made me veer closer to peer over the back of his armchair and I saw the computerised graphics of a chess board on the screen.

The footman opened the door of one of the club's private rooms and as I entered, I scanned the room for an envelope in a familiar hand. Mycroft rose to meet me and the gently fluttering pages of The Sun newspaper next to him suggested he had been interrupted by my entrance from some private reverie. I squared my shoulders, determined to keep this encounter brief and unemotional. "Mycroft."

"John. Do sit down. Coffee?" Mycroft's voice was rich and slick, like cream.

"No thank you." I waited.

"I do hope we haven't inconvenienced you by dragging you over here. We haven't met since… ahem… since…."

The delicate pause stretched and was in danger of becoming an awkward silence. Mycroft filled it. "Ahem…Yes. I understand, John, you've been… ahem…blogging?" A small moue of distaste began at the corner of Mycroft's mouth.

"That's right."

"About Sherlock?"

"Correct. I've been carrying on with the blogging that I started when he was alive." I felt my voice begin to wobble and swallowed hard. "His name needs to be known. To counter all the rubbish in the press." I looked pointedly at The Sun and back to Mycroft, who didn't blink. "The tabloids in particular."

"You're very loyal, John."

"We've had this conversation before." I didn't bother to hide the hostility in my voice. "Anthea said you had something for me. I'd like to have that, please, and then I'll go."

Mycroft ignored me. "Your… ahem… commitment to my brother is very laudable, John, but, if I may say, it's also somewhat problematic." Mycroft paused but my expression was fixed. "Sherlock died in some disgrace and there are … ahem….authorities who would prefer that he is allowed to be quietly forgotten. Your blog is proving to be a hindrance. It would be appreciated if you would desist."

I felt something twisting in my heart. "Disgrace? Sherlock didn't die in disgrace. He was stitched up. By so many people, by these authorities you talk about. By you, Mycroft. He was a great man, and he did this country a great service. But most of all he was your bloody brother. You talk to me about loyalty like it's some kind of disease. Well maybe it's something you should catch."

"John." The creamy voice was back. "Sherlock wouldn't want you to be this, this agitated by his death. He'd want you to get on with your life, move forward. He was never one for emotion. I know I can be certain of this, after all, I knew him for over thirty years."

"And did you ever see him cry?"

"I'm sorry?"

"In those thirty years, those thirty years of what you seem to be implying was such brotherly love, did you ever see him cry? Did you ever sit for hours on end and watch him think? Or watch him sleep? Fight to defend him? Did you save his life Mycroft?" I sank my head into my hands as the memories flooded through me yet again. Mycroft sat silently for a minute and when he spoke again his voice was rougher.

"John. I have something of Sherlock's for you. I have come under some pressure to withhold it from you unless you agree to stop blogging."

I felt my fists clench as my head shot up from between my hands. Mycroft stretched out his own hands to placate me.

"No, no, John. I am not quite as heartless as you seem to think I am. You gave my brother a lot of… a lot of support in his final years and I am grateful. I can see you will not be persuaded to stop blogging. All I can do is give you a warning. You are treading on dangerous ground." Mycroft opened the drawer of the table next to him and pulled out a padded envelope. "This is for you."

I took the envelope and felt something solid beneath my fingers. "What is it?"

Mycroft turned away and pushed a button by the side of his chair. "I'm sorry John. I have other business to attend to. Goodbye." The door opened and the footman was there, his finger still glued to his lips. I looked at him. "Yeah, silence. I get it." I squared my shoulders and pushed past him, marching through the faceless occupants of the armchairs to the noise of the street outside.

I took a cab back to Baker Street, holding the envelope in both hands. I looked at it, trying to read it, in the way that Sherlock would have. But all I could see was a blank, padded, self-seal envelope. No writing. No stamp. It looked as if it had been pulled from the stationery cupboard of any London office. The cab pulled up outside 221b and I let myself into the flat, my stomach churning with a mix of anticipation and dread. Upstairs I put the envelope down on the coffee table and forced myself to pull out my laptop to check the blog, trying to control my emotions.

There were comments from new posters and some from what were becoming the old familiars. Two more journalists, asking for exclusive interviews. AngelEyes asking for more pictures of Sherlock – preferably ones without me in them. Rex was criticising my grammar and there were more taunts from the troll who called himself JimM. I scanned an active discussion about whether it was possible to tell a woman's measurements just by looking at her and pushed the laptop aside. I couldn't put it off any more. I had to open the envelope.

I picked it up and tore at it, trying not to think, not to feel. My fingers grasped the solid plastic inside, and pulled out Sherlock's mobile phone.

The moments of that last call came back to me, craning my neck up to the roots of St Barts, the meaning of his words slowly sinking in and my refusal to accept them. The phone had been pressed to his ear for his last words, and then tossed aside, scattered on the roof next to Moriarty's body, as he'd taken his last step. That phone call had been his note. And now this phone was all there was. There was no letter, no apology, no personal entreaty, no expression of appreciation, or affection. All my foolish hopes from the car had been realised in this - a piece of plastic with a crack along the screen from where he'd thrown it down. Lifeless, dead, pointless. I tossed the phone across the room. "Not good, Sherlock," I said the words out loud. "Not good."


End file.
